TERNITIES, THE CONFLUX OF, Carlyle's expressive phrase for Time, as
in every moment of it a centre in which all the forces to and from
Eternity meet and unite, so that by no past and no future can we be
brought nearer to Eternity than where we at any moment of Time are; the
Present Time, the youngest born of Eternity, being the child and heir of
all the Past times with their good and evil, and the parent of all the
Future, the import of which (see Matt. xvi. 27) it is accordingly the
first and most sacred duty of every successive age, and especially the
leaders of it, to know and lay to heart as the only link by which
Eternity lays hold of it and it of Eternity.

ETHELBERT, a king of Kent, in whose reign Christianity was
introduced by St. Augustin and a band of missionaries in 597; drew up the
first Saxon law code (552-616).

ETHELDREDA, a Saxon princess, whose name, shortened into St. Audrey,
was given to a certain kind of lace, whence "tawdry"; she took refuge
from the married state in the monastery of St. Abb's Head, and afterwards
founded a monastery in the Isle of Ely (630-679).

ETHELRED I., king of Saxon England (866-871), predecessor and
brother of Alfred; his reign was a long and unsuccessful struggle with
the Danes.

ETHELRED II., the Unready, a worthless king of Saxon England
(979-1016), married Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, a step
which led in the end to the claim which issued in the Norman Conquest
(968-1016).

ETHER, a volatic liquid prepared from the distillation of alcohol
and sulphuric acid at high temperature; is colourless, and emits a sweet,
penetrating odour; is highly combustible; a useful solvent, and an
important anaesthetic.

ETHER, a subtle element presumed to pervade all interstellar space,
vibrations in which are assumed to account for the transmission of light
and all radiant energy.

ETHEREDGE, SIR GEORGE, the originator of the kind of comedy
"containing a vein of lively humour and witty dialogue which were
afterwards displayed by Congreve and Farquhar"; has been called the
"founder of the comedy of intrigue"; he was the author of three clever
plays, entitled "Love in a Tub," "She Would if She Could," and "Sir
Fopling Flutter" (1636-1694).

ETHICS, the science which treats of the distinction between right
and wrong and of the moral sense by which they are discriminated.

ETHICS OF DUST, THE, "a book by Ruskin about crystallography, but it
twists